C³ Episode 12 [Final]: DEUS. EX. MACHINAAAA!!!

The group begin their battle with Alice, only to find out that Alice’s magic mirror allows her to make solid duplicates of herself that last for 10 minutes, proven when Fear impales one of them through with a drill and has to watch as the clone gets torn up. The situation is pretty much hopeless…until Shiraho and Sovereignty turn up, releasing Kuroe from her body paralysis and breaking the mirror. Kuroe restrains the clones, allowing Haruaki and Fear to beat Alice. Before they can deal the final blow though, she jumps off a cliff and is rescued by a ship, saying that she’ll return to capture Fear someday.

Impression

And Sovereignty saves the day! Just when it couldn’t possibly get any worse too. I swear, I could almost predict a deus ex machina rescuing everyone from that hopeless situation, because everyone was pretty much done for before Shiraho turned up. Well, I guess that’s what has to happen with such an overpowered enemy. Solid clones, that hang around for 10 minutes? C’mon, not even Naruto is that far-fetched. At least his clones poof.

Main gore scene of the week – Fear accidentally impaling one of the Alice clones through her body, and us watching her body get torn up while Fear nearly goes crazy loli mode. Yeah, since no-one actually expected the drill to hit, much less Fear herself since Alice could block it with her cleaver. I’m kind of glad they didn’t show the full shot of the Alice clone dying, because that would be way overboard, even for this show.

The battle scene itself wasn’t too bad, most of it was pretty well animated but I felt there was a noticeable drop in the quality of some of the scenes (art, rendering etc.). Sometimes I felt like I was watching something out of a cartoon rather than an anime.

Kirika always seems to get the short end of the stick – yeah, I know she’s immortal but cut her some slack! Alice fondling her organs through a giant cut in her body isn’t something I want to get from a series that then goes and shows a moe moe kyun Sovereignty illuminated in a spotlight. Though we do get these erotic expressions and drooling out of it that could easily be misinterpreted as her having sex…if only there wasn’t the end of some arm STICKING OUT OF HER GUT.

In terms of the whole wrap-up to the arc, I…wasn’t all that satisfied. For one thing, I had the impression that Fear’s torture mechanisms actually did kill their victims, so I don’t see why Alice should still be alive after that brutal attack. I was gonna be pretty content if she fell into the sea and ended up drowning herself, but then Silver Link had to go and introduce a further two characters, both affiliated with the Families that we know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT *facepalms* If this is their way at hinting towards a second season, it’s a pretty cheap way of doing so. Still, these new characters seem interesting, except for the fact that this is the last ep of the show. Could do with the guy in the hat wearing some clothes though.

I’m not surprised that this show decided to close it’s finale with its trademark genre swap to fanservice of all the main girls, that’s the way it started out after all!

It’s been a pretty shaky coverage of C³; the anime itself had its ups and downs but on the whole I’m pretty content with how this turned out xD Overall review up next!